


The River Remembers the Sea

by Serenade



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Myth & Folklore, Sea Monsters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:21:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27163099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serenade/pseuds/Serenade
Summary: The Watcher in the Water stops just watching.
Comments: 12
Kudos: 14
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	The River Remembers the Sea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Narya (Narya_Flame)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Narya_Flame/gifts).



Long ago, you came here, under the mountain. There are caverns that have never seen the light of sun or star; there are waters that have never known the reflection of the moon. Deep and dark and endless are the rivers that flow underground; deeper and darker still are the creatures that dwell within them.

You are the watcher in the water, the dweller in the deep, the one who waits in the dark. You have fed on the flesh of beasts long extinct.

The dwarves knew you. They heard your echo in the deepest wells. They saw your ripples in the darkest pools. They found bones washed up on the riverbanks. They set lamps on the shore, fiery suns to drive you back. Their delving woke a greater fire from the pit of the earth. Now they are gone.

The orcs dammed the river and made the lake. You know its limits and its boundaries. There is nowhere your arms cannot reach. A stone falls into the water, and you rise to take your prey. Gifts from the world above. You like the taste of warm flesh and warm blood, more appetising than cold cave fish.

You wait. You watch. You strike.

*

All water was once the same sea. The endless ocean with its endless roar. You were a tiny cluster of tentacles, floating in a cloud of your own kind. What did you know of the great powers of the world? What did you care for the wars they fought?

Then the land was broken, and the waters poured in, and the tide rushed upriver. A vast swathe of continent claimed by the sea, in tumult and chaos. You swam through drowned cities, strange and wondrous and terrible. The bygone beauty of a bygone age: bleached bones on the ocean floor, the throne of kings toppled in the abyss.

You swam a long way upriver. You feasted well in those days.

*

You know about sunken treasure. It sings to you now: this new thing, this little thing, this shining circle of gold. It sings to you like the memory of the sea, like the gulls that dared skim its surface. It sings to you of greatness, of becoming a colossus, if you but had the chance to grow into your destiny. Ships, sailors, islands: all fall to your grasp, snapping masts as easily as fishbones, swallowing down whales like minnows.

It is all yours for the taking.

You reach for that shining circle of gold.

You are met with the sting of steel.

The dream is snatched away. Your fury is like the storm. You shatter the mountainside, bring down the avalanche, and uproot the mighty trees. One cannot summon the storm without consequence.

The lake is too small for your ambition. Swimming in circles. Hunting orcs like rats. You want to battle giants: kraken and leviathan and beasts with no name. You yearn for the Great Sea, the greatest realm of them all.

You find the crack in the wall. You pry up the loose stone. No dam can forever hold back the force of the torrent. Relentless and unstoppable, whether in the full spate of fury, or in the slow drip over aeons. Rivers cut canyons through bedrock. Waves grind mountains down to sand.

You take down the stones, and you tear down the wall, and the river flows down to the sea.


End file.
